The Wanderer's Keeper
by aikitty
Summary: COMPLETE AU Based on The Buried Moon. Kagome is a priestess whose powers give birth to the moon each night, protecting earth from demons. When a cunning demon kidnaps her to suppress her powers, Inuyasha wants to rescue her for ignoble reasons.
1. Chapter 1

THE WANDERER'S KEEPER

Comments: This is a three-part collection of fairy tale retellings. The first is based on "The Buried Moon," an English fairytale. If you wish to read this tale yourself, which I recommend as it's a sweet tale, you can find it at /neu/eng/meft/meft24. h t m.

Chapter 01

* * *

Once upon a time, in a far away kingdom, there was a cottage in the woods. It was a simple cottage, made of stone, and it showed signs of old age. It was faded and worn smooth by years of rain, sun, and wind. A little herb and vegetable garden and a water well were kept within a leaning fence on one side; on the other, an unpainted barn in which lived a donkey, two goats, and seven red chickens. Although the cottage was surrounded by the woods, tucked away in the gold-green world of plant life, one tree in particular stood out from the others. It was a rather large tree, built like a banyan. Its roots ran like a comb from the branches to the ground; it was the only of its kind in the entire woods. Its willowy leaves lent it an oceanic sound when the wind wound through it, and no matter the season it stayed green. Most unusual was that in the cradle of its branches was a globe of perfect, clear glass.

Aside from this tree, the cottage appeared to be quite normal and indeed functioned in the normal way of cottages. Its owner was a young, unmarried woman who lived by her own means because she was too concerned with her work to go down in the town among the other people except to buy some materials to help her make the food she could not grow herself. This young woman, with hair the color of charcoal and eyes the color of blue bells, was named Kagome. She tended the cottage every day with care and paid especial attention to the particularly unusual tree.

Each night, she climbed into the tree and placed her hands on the globe. Instantly, the young woman would fall into a stupor as the globe filled with more and more light. Then the globe would rise into the sky and give the velvet night a constant glow, one that kept at bay the demons from the human villages for demons were frightened of light; nights with moonlight ensured that demons would stay in the forest or in the sea.

However, this round moon would every night be less and less lit; one band would be dark, and then another sliver would also be dark the next time it went into the sky. For one part of the month, the sky held no moon at all--it was on these nights that Kagome rested very deeply, restoring her holy energy for her task. Then her strength would recover and each night she would add another band of light back to the moon.

Although she did support herself in the way of other mortals in a mostly independent manner, she had one bodyguard to help her. He was a half-demon who lingered always at the edge of her property. Sometimes she spied him in the early morning, amber eyes as alert as a cat's, and then he would disappear. During the day he slept in the sturdy branches of the trees, and at night he prowled around the woods and battled with any demons who would approach Kagome. Because he was a half-demon, the light did not harm or frighten him.

When he first began protecting her, it was because he learned that she, upon whom every human and half-demon depended, had no one to guard her. It was dangerous to be the moon, for it was the constant desire of demons to rid the earth of that which kept them in check. This half-demon man had the personal wish to keep her from harm because on each night that the sky was moonless, he lost his demon strength and prowess and became a simple human. If Kagome were to die, her powers would simply pass onto another priestess; the half-demon guarded her faithfully despite this knowledge. He had been loyal to her protection since the moment the moon-sphere was created for Kagome.

During the time of month when the sky was moonless, he would, as a human, stand outside her door and guard her as he could. In this way he had become her champion.

This half-demon, called Inuyasha for the white canine ears that sat atop his head among his billowy hair, did not often interact with Kagome. They spoke to each other once every day, when Kagome would prepare a dinner for them to share on the porch of her cottage. Rarely, Inuyasha could be coaxed into sitting next to her on some mornings. That was the only time their very similar lives intersected.

"There have been an unusual number of demons out lately." Inuyasha flicked an ear and took another slice of honey bread from the loaf on the bread board. "I'm not sure why," he added with some distraction.

Kagome offered a wan smile. "We'll be especially careful, then." She cut him out a lump of butter for the bread.

Inuyasha snorted. "Not if you're acting like a rock again." Kagome offered an unimpressive glare; tonight was a moonless night and Inuyasha usually reminded her that she was impossible to awaken during these times. She had long ago convinced herself that this was Inuyasha's way of dealing with the trouble that every new moon brought them.

"It's starting to get cold again," the young priestess mentioned as a chill wind whispered whimperingly through the trees. It was true that autumn was coming, giving the trees all the red and gold flares of fire. Autumn was the time of death, and therefore the time of demons. Inuyasha remarked every year about the increase of their numbers, but Kagome remained unworried; time after time, there would be more of them but by spring they would dwindle down again. They came and went with the cycle of the seasons, just as the color of the leaves changed and the weather turned. The demons just favored the long nights and the lessening of direct sunlight in their environment; during the colder season of winter, simpler demons could even be spotted prowling in the daylight--these demons mostly ignored the human settlements and preyed on small animals instead. The higher demons with humanoid figures and intelligence were almost never seen, even on the shortest and darkest days of the year.

Inuyasha grunted in a noncommittal manner as Kagome accentuated her remark with a shiver and a small frown. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and said, "I'll get some firewood ready."

This comment _did _surprise Kagome. Never before had Inuyasha offered to help with the maintenance of her cottage, and she did not expect it. She had no means by which to pay him even for guarding her and her land; she barely produced enough food to feed herself and to trade for the proper grains to feed her livestock, and with no profession she had no service to offer in return. As a half-demon, winter did not bother Inuyasha or prevent him from going about his normal way of life so he had none of his own concerns in finding firewood.

"I'd be grateful for that, Inuyasha." She smiled brilliantly at him. Chopping up firewood was difficult for her. She had never been fond of the physical exertion required and at her childhood home it had been her brother's chore to chop down firewood, while she was made to bundle it and stack it in storage.

"Keh." Inuyasha shrugged, swallowed the rest of his dinner, gave a catlike stretch, and pounced away to begin his first rounds of the night. Kagome smiled and playfully offered him a farewell before turning to the barn to tend the animals for the evening. The afternoon light was growing faded and it was time to prepare for her deep sleep. She was always happy for this day to come, because in the morning she would awaken with a new sense of purpose and brimming with energy.

She chatted happily at the animals as she poured grain and fresh water into the proper buckets and pans, singing and humming to them as she raked up the stalls and laid down fresh bedding. It seemed to grow increasingly lonelier through the long years she lived alone in the cottage. In truth, she missed her family and friends but could not risk their safety by staying in a village.

So instead of bemoaning her fate, she accepted it with a small measure of sadness and always cheered herself with the thought of her half-demon champion. Very few people ever had quite the dedication that Inuyasha showed her, and this warmed Kagome's heart. The way this man protected her from the things she could not fight herself without ever asking anything in return was a comfort, especially in the careless way he seemed to do it. As if it didn't take every hour of his every day. As if it was as natural to him as the wind in the trees and the water in the river. But Kagome would never tell him how much his devotion meant to her, at least not yet. He was not graceful or inclined to act nobly. If she told him what lay in her heart of hearts, he might leave her forever.

* * *

The King of the Wood was old even for a demon; he had been sly and smart and had lived for a long time because of that. Unlike other demons, he was not rash--as a matter of fact, he was exceedingly patient and resourceful. Instead of going on dangerous missions himself, he would hire out other demons. These demons may have been weaker than he, or sometimes even his natural enemies, but it was a far better idea than to go out himself. Also unlike other demons, he frequently planned ahead. Because of his meticulous and careful movements, the whole woods of the entire continent were now under his sole control. After a mere fifty years of sneakingly collecting the allegiance and servitude of the creatures living in the many different forests, he could now take pride in the name he had adopted from his subjects. _King of the Wood_.

Now it was nearing time for his greatest mission yet, one that would eventually place him in control of the world beyond the woods--the meadows, seas, and fields that belonged inherently to humankind; soon, those pests would be gone, just as every other creature who had opposed him was gone.

He smiled to himself. He felt that truly he had been the cleverest demon who had ever lived; certainly much cleverer than his father, who had believed that the way forward was to separate even further from humankind. This thought turned the King's smile into a frightening scowl and he quickly moved away from thinking about his deceased father's passive desires, mentally preparing for tonight's plans.

Tonight was a moonless night, but it would be some hours yet before the sun would set. However, the King was not in a den or hiding place as most other demons spent their days. He was in a thick part of the woods where no sunlight penetrated the canopy, leaving it bare of all life except the roots that trees had dug into the soil and sometimes offered ridges and bumps to the ground. The soil itself was rich and moist, full of nutrients from the heavy leaves that had been shed for so long from the overhanging trees. Blacker than any moonless night, for it was unlit by even stars, it was the King's haven; the castle of his kingdom. It was quiet; animal life remained up in the crowns of the trees, where there were things to eat and sunlight to warm them. Occasionally a bird song would drift down into his lair, but this was only a minor annoyance and of no worry to him. In certain seasons fruit and nuts would drop and then it would be littered with creatures; this too was no more than an annoyance to the King. They did not threaten the otherwise perfect peace of his kingdom's heart.

The King lovingly looked at his surroundings. Soon, the nights would be blacker than ever to complement this dark kingdom; every night would be moonless after his plan tonight was set into action.

He had learned that it was difficult indeed to bind the priestess who made the moon each night: any time he sent forth a demon to capture her, it was killed by her bodyguard. This was a great hindrance to the King and his progress, because her bodyguard was a lanky, undersized _half-demon_ and it hurt not only his reputation but his pride as well that he could not dispose of him. But the King did not rush in to pulverize this threat himself; instead, after two years of sending in single demons, teams of demons, teeming demons, all to no avail--it was time for a much more subtle tactic. Something that would elude the hot-headed half-demon who guarded the moon so thoroughly.

The King was tonight sending in a totally new enemy, never before seen on the earth until this time. This enemy was of his own creation, made partly of himself in unearthly ways. The world was going to move into a devastating new era. He grinned wickedly in the dark.

* * *

Kagome sat up in bed with a slow lethargy, still partially asleep. She was unsure what awoke her; nothing had ever risen her out of her deep sleep before--not even Inuyasha had accomplished such a task. But her mind, slow with sleep, could not be enticed to think hardly about it. Instead, she let her eyes be drawn to a spark of light near her window. Numbly, almost out of touch with her body, she rose and moved to this spark. She reached out to touch it, but it moved outside. Kagome followed it, stepping onto the chill autumn grass from her windowsill. The barn was quiet and the wind was still; as she passed him, Kagome saw Inuyasha engaged with a tall female demon in battle. She did not process what she saw; the spark was twinkling and she moved again toward it, fatally curious about this strange movement of light. When she reached it, it jumped away once more. In this way it continued across the small clearing of her yard. At the edge of the woods, a small spike of fear touched her heart. There were demons in the woods. She needed to go back to Inuyasha, where she would be safe. The battle he was fighting with the female was silent to her and she could not turn her head towards him, no matter how hard she sleepily fought her desire to follow the spark. She mentally cried out for her savior, as if she was unable to control her own movements. Her mouth moved but did not allow out a single sound.

The spark she was following grew brighter and all thoughts of fleeing left her. After she passed the tree that held the precious glass sphere, she reached out her hand; her fingers touched something haltingly cold and she shuddered. She slumped down and a small girl demon approached her. This small demon, snowy-haired, placed a palm-sized mirror into a sash around her dress; she had been using this small, simply adorned vanity piece to lure Kagome with a magic reflection. It was an enchantment so acute that it had been striking enough to pull Kagome away from her rest, from her duty.

Once the mirror was secured, the demon girl placidly lifted up Kagome's limp body with ease, and she moved deeper into the trees.

This small demon moved untroubledly through the woods, at a pace that was frighteningly fast but elegant and gentle. The woman in her arms did not rise against her, for she was asleep again. After some hours, the trees thickened into an unbroken canopy; it was here that the small demon met the female that had been fighting Inuyasha. With a pouty scowl, the woman pulled a feather from her hair and created an enchanted leaf that allowed the two demons with their cargo to move even faster between the braided branches of the trees. Soon, the King of the Wood stepped into the demons' sight. The tall female stood aside and remained remote, a sulky sentry in the seemingly infinite depth of dark wood.

The King smiled.

"Very good." How simple it all seemed, the King thought; send two demons in, one to distract Inuyasha and one to abduct Kagome. But of course it had not been that simple; no two demons could have ordinarily accomplished such a task, for Kagome was so polarized from the demonic world that she was made difficult to capture. It was also a grave mistake to kill her, for killing one priestess would only allow a new one to take her place in a never-ending stream of priestesses. The power moved from a dead priestess to any other available mortal woman of considerable pure heart; therefore, it was wisest to capture her and repress her. So even the King himself could not outright kill her, which he regretted, but his mood could not be blemished tonight.

Timelessly demons had pursued her, for if they could not kill her they could subdue her very well. They needed only keep her from the unbreakable glass globe; without killing her, she retained the moon's power. Many demons had not reached this conclusion and wastefully killed the other priestesses. The King had not made such a mistake; he had succeeded where his peers had not. The moon would not rise again. Now, finally, the King had made her his captive.

Kagome stirred as the small demon set her down on the forest floor. The sun had risen unseen overhead, and her power had begun to return. The tall demon showed no interest, flicking dried blood from her fingernails.

"Welcome to my kingdom, Lady Moon," the King said cordially in a pleasant tone. Any hatred he felt for the priestess was concealed by his relaxed voice. Kagome's eyes widened in fear as she observed the demon before her.

"Let me go!" she demanded with as strong a voice as she could, rising to her bare feet. She did not know this demon before her, but she was intimately aware of any demon as her rightful enemy.

The King chuckled. "Only you've just arrived!" He moved closer to her and forcefully grabbed her arm as she tried to flee. The small girl demon held her in place as the King traced Kagome's jawline with a brutally clawed finger.

"Stop it!" Kagome shouted, wriggling to get away. She could feel the silty loam tearing up beneath her feet, soft and wet, as she scrambled against the surprising strength of the small demon. The King of the Wood stepped forward and grabbed her chin, looking directly into her eyes with plain amusement.

"All of my guests are adequately treated here, Lady Moon; I would not send you off without showing you some of my hospitality. You've had a long journey this night. Please rest yourself."

Kagome cried out as a sharp pain scalded her face and then she slumped back into the small demon's ghostly arms. The King continued his pleased smile. He could not kill Kagome, but he could curse her. Kagome would sleep for as long as he needed her to. He accepted her body from the small demon and moved her to a place he had prepared for her to stay eternally. She was moved into a lidless, wooden coffin. The King placed one white candle in her hands and lit it with demon fire. The enchanted candle would burn but not reduce the wick, nor melt the wax. Its tiny honey-colored flame lit the woods with soft light pocked with shadows, gray and black, but the light did not extend very far through the dense growth. The King stared down at this and, with one more self-satisfied chuckle, turned and went to gather up his closest followers. The advantage lay in attacking before the humans knew the moon was gone.

The priestess was tranquil and still in her sleep. The candle glowed warmly and steadily, showing only peace on Kagome's face. The tall female demon narrowed her eyes and turned to follow the King away from the site of the moon's grave.

* * *

When the tall demon had suddenly retreated from the fight, Inuyasha had grown instantly suspicious. Panting and with his human body bloody and exhausted, he had entered without preamble into Kagome's cottage to check on her immediate safety.

Kagome did not have a bed, because she so rarely needed to sleep in one. Instead she had a mound of blankets in one corner which she kept put away in her wardrobe during the remainder of the month. Inuyasha did not see her among these as he moved in that direction, heart pounding with dread as he left traces of blood behind him. Ripping through the bedding, he slumped down in defeat and lost consciousness.

When Inuyasha awoke again, he instantly observed the room around him with urgent alertness. The cottage was not in any disarray. Clearly Kagome had not even been given the chance to put up a fight of her own. The window was still open, and a crisp autumnal breeze was bumping at the curtains between which gentle starlight spilled. Swearing, Inuyasha observed that his hands were perfectly human, with untidily trimmed finger nails rather than curved claws. His hair was pure black and his senses were unusually dull. His body throbbed with pain and his untreated wounds smarted as he rose in a rush and went to the open door, although he noticed that these injuries were much less intense than they had been before he had fell unconscious. Outside, the sun had just set; he could see the faintest traces of gray in the west. He swore again, angered that he had spent the entire day hunched over Kagome's sleeping place.

He could see no mark of Kagome anywhere. Scouring her small property, he could not find any dent of her footprint and without his normally acute senses he could pick up no trace of her distinctive scent. He suddenly stopped by the tree with the globe and rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at it, fingers moving roughly over the sore knob of bone there. He told himself that at least he was human and not a half-demon; it meant that Kagome was still alive somewhere. Either that or her powers had been somehow removed from her and prevented from going to another woman.

Inuyasha dislodged that thought with rough determination and convinced himself that Kagome must still be alive.

Now he was a human, and he knew he must decide where to search. In one direction, several miles south, lay the human village. North, east, and west was dense forest that he desperately wanted to search. However, he chose to trace the direction of the village at a clipped pace, forcing himself on despite the way his body burned with pain. As a human, he could enter there with no worry of coming under attack by those who lived there; while there, he could talk to the Wise Woman. Even though it was difficult for him to accept, he knew that he must at least give warning of Kagome's fate. Possibly the Wise Woman could give him future direction for finding Kagome. It was urgent that he arrive and explain his situation before morning, when he would resume his normal half-demon shape and be attacked. At that point he would search the woods by himself as a half-demon, but he knew that such a task would take a great length of time if no clear trail had been left behind for him.

It was just after midnight by the time Inuyasha struggled into sight of the village. Like patchwork against the backdrop of cut fields and a small lake, the town was a contrasting mix of brown, silver, and yellow; in the dark night, these were all varying shades of gray. Unlit lamps were strung along poles throughout the village, decorations for the upcoming autumn festival. He was grateful for the peace of night--during the day the town was chaotic. The busy market sounds and yelling of children along with the barking of dogs would lend the place an unmusical mish-mash of noises from which Inuyasha would not be able discern an intelligible thread. Without such distractions, he was right away able to see the section of town reserved for traveling merchants. This particular human village offered no inns. Some of these merchants would be lodging with hospitable residents, but Inuyasha also knew that many merchants preferred to stay with their wares all night for less rush in the morning.

Almost bonelessly, he woke a merchant and asked desperately in which direction the Wise Woman could be found. The merchant wordlessly pointed out a cottage on the eastern edge of the town. Inuyasha loped in that direction over the smooth cobbles of the village's main road and knocked heavily on the wooden door, which opened for him after several minutes.

With a loud gasp, a tired young woman who had been hastily dressed slung Inuyasha's arm over her shoulder and limped inside the house with him. He begrudgingly accepted this help, reminding himself constantly that if he did not he would only delay finding Kagome. The young woman hurried off, shouting out for the Wise Woman, and returned with a bucket of warm water and an armful of cloth strips. While she began to clean and wrap up his wounds, an older woman came into the room from a hallway. She brought with her the heady smell of medicinal herbs.

She slowly and calmly settled down across from Inuyasha, the age of her body clear by the delicate way she was forced to move herself, and looked at him.

"What is it that you have come so say?" she asked him in a knotty voice.

"Oh, please, Kaede! He's hurt!" the young woman said. "Surely his business can wait?"

Despite this reaction, Inuyasha grimly drew in a breath and began speaking. "The Priestess Kagome, the moon, has been captured. I don't know where," Inuyasha admitted, looking away. "So if you want your moon back, you better tell me where she is, grandma."

Both women exchanged horrified glances. "The moon has been abducted? You know for certain she has not been killed?" pressed Kaede with considerable urgency in her tone.

"I'm sure she was captured. Believe me, I'd know if she was dead."

"It would explain why there has not been any sign of power this night. I did not feel the priestess send off the moon." Kaede then said, "If she has not been killed already... that probably means she won't be killed for some time."

"If that's true that she's been abducted," said the young woman, "it means we're dealing with a rather smart demon, doesn't it?" She finished up the last of Inuyasha's bandages and slipped lithely down to the floor next to Kaede, putting her hand on the older woman's gnarled arm. Inuyasha grumbled. "So that he prevents another priestess from taking over. That's dangerous."

Kaede brought her hand up to her chin and seemed to consider things. "Please tell me about this event." Inuyasha launched off into his tale, explaining how he had been guarding Kagome for four years and how this attack differed considerably from any he had faced before. He did not, however, tell Kaede how he knew Kagome was still alive; these humans did not need to know that he was not truly one of their number. He gratefully accepted that they believed him in his tale, and also believed that he knew Kagome was still alive. It had possibly been to his advantage that an entire day had passed before he had come here.

"What should we do, Kaede?" the young woman asked. "Surely there must be something! Should I form up a search party?"

"No," Kaede said softly. "This is something for our young man here to do." Then, addressing Inuyasha, she said, "Go to the town of Seafront northeast of here. There lives there a priest with particular power. Tell him of what has happened, and he shall give you direction and holy blessing. This is the only way I can think of."

"Alright," Inuyasha said, standing.

"Wait," Kaede instructed. Before Inuyasha could voice his protest, she added, "Let Sango go with you. I have faith that she will help you in your journey." The young woman, presumably Sango, frowned but agreed to accompany Inuyasha.

"Whatever," he said. "Let's just get going." Sango rushed off into a side room and returned with a large, polished boomerang. Inuyasha eyed it warily but turned for the door, trying to keep any weakness caused by his injuries from showing through.

"Godspeed on your journey."

"This way," Sango motioned, pointing toward a main road. "This leads out of town and will take us through some forest and finally into Maytown." Hesitantly, she added, "It will probably take at least four days to get to Seafront on foot."

"Then we need to go as fast as possible, wench," Inuyasha said insistently before jogging off in the way she had indicated. Sango followed without complaint.


	2. Chapter 2

THE WANDERER'S KEEPER

Chapter 02

* * *

In the coffin where she had been laid, Kagome slept deeply. In her sleep, she began to dream. She dreamed of a castle built of gray stone, curled up with ivy, of striking age. She dreamed that she crossed the drawbridge and was welcomed into the gates. However, she could not cross the flower-littered courtyard to the main entryway. An invisible barrier lay between her and the doors. Soon it became undeniably important to her that she break through this barrier; she began beating wildly at it, but her hands met resistance too strong for her to break. Then she found herself looking at a woman identical to her, on the opposite side of the barrier. This other woman sadly moved her hands up and placed them against the unseen wall. Kagome matched her gesture, allowing her hands to slip down. The surface of what fell between them felt like a porous glass, smoothly textured but a bit sticky where her hands rubbed. With hurried desperation, she scratched at the solid air between them, looking for a way in. The woman spoke, but Kagome could not hear her. The carefully pruned branches of the trees and the perfumed heads of flowers bobbed and bowed in a warm breeze, reflecting none of Kagome's needy haste.

In the forest, eyes closed, Kagome's body was cold and still. The candle in her loosely grasped hands flicked and flared, moving in some unseen wind, grew tall and shrank down, offered endless waves of shifting light and shadows.

The King of the Wood did not know that Kagome dreamed, and he did not pay much mind to the candle flame's unexpected dance. He was busy with the raid on the closest village, and that consumed all of his urgent attentions.

* * *

Inuyasha slumped down by the fire and impassively handed a freshly caught rabbit to Sango. At his insistence, they had slept during the day and now that it was evening, with Inuyasha returned to his human form, he was doing what he could to put up the pretense of being a true human. In his half-demon form, he wouldn't take the time to go through the delicate process of skinning, cleaning, and cooking the rabbit. With a human digestive system, however, those things were necessary. Luckily Sango was adept at such skills and began right away as if this had long been something she was accustomed to doing. Inuyasha glowered at his surroundings moodily; how weak the human constitution was. How weak _he_ was now that he had to go about like a human. If he hadn't felt that Sango would turn on him if she discovered his secret, he would not have insisted in traveling as a human. But it was only a short term change. If he didn't cautiously go about rescuing the priestess, then he would have to turn into a human every night for the rest of his life.

With the fire spitting and crackling, Inuyasha silently brooded about losing Kagome. In his heart, he felt like a failure. She was only one small woman and it had been his self-appointed task to protect her, and he had not been able to do it. Now Kagome was facing some peril at the hands of demons who loathed her more than they hated the sun; Inuyasha could not stomach thinking about the endless possible tortures they could be inflicting upon her. It did not ease him at all to think that to whatever they were doing to her, she was utterly powerless; they had somehow suppressed her from even reaching her globe.

How he desired to shed his human companion and use his half-demon strength in the light of day, where he could run much faster with much more agility! But he could not risk being rejected by Sango if she were to play some important part in Kagome's rescue. If the Wise Woman thought that Sango would be important, it was probably true, he admitted grudgingly to himself.

Anyway, he told himself forcefully, it's not really for Kagome. He was doing this so his powers would go back to normal. Not because he wanted to see the priestess safe. His stomach lurched. Of course it wasn't for that measly human.

While Sango spitted the rabbit, she stole a glance at her new traveling companion. She had been waiting to leave the village Timple for quite some time; as a hunter and professional demon-slayer she was normally always moving from town to town. Kaede the Wise Woman had called in Sango to kill a relatively weak demon that had been causing small trouble along its shared border with the forest, in particular to the farmers there. Sango had never before been in Timple, because it had an unusually low occurrence of demon attacks. Sango now attested this phenomenon to Inuyasha and the priestess' presence; surely the monsters were more interested in Kagome than the small village some miles away from her.

Sango scrunched up her nose and turned the spits in her palm. After Sango had slain the centipede demon that had been stealing crops and terrorizing the farmers, Kaede insisted that she stay because, as a Wise Woman, she had had a premonition of some great mission that would shortly be assigned her. So Sango had reluctantly remained in Timple and helped Kaede with menial tasks around her house, trying to patiently await whatever fate would bring her. The words of a Wise Woman could not be ignored or taken lightly; they didn't often receive premonitions, but when they did they were clear and worthwhile, and wholly undeniable. Sango wondered what part she would play in the rescue of the priestess, and also what part Inuyasha would play. She wished that Kaede had told her more.

"Are your injuries bothering you, Inuyasha?" Sango asked, noticing Inuyasha grimace suddenly.

"Keh, no, you puny wench," he said with a snort, his face clearing somewhat; his wounds had mostly healed during the day and he had barely remembered their presence at all. In truth, he was grimacing at his own thoughts. Sango shrugged and ignored his insults. It was easy for her to see that he was worried about something and she wasn't about to let his foul temper come in the way of the rescue mission, which she was going to handle like any job that she was assigned--with diligence, dedication, determination.

Still, she was quite curious about her strange new comrade. She turned to him and noticed that he was brooding again. "Why are you still going after Priestess Kagome? You told us at Kaede's home that you only looked after her because you had nothing better to do and that you hardly even spoke to her." She just knew there had to be more to it than that.

Inuyasha answered with only a glare before snatching up several strips of rabbit meat that Sango designated as his share when she decided everything was thoroughly cooked. They ate in ruffled silence; neither were especially social and Sango could not think of any conversation that would receive polite responses from Inuyasha. To her dismay, it was obvious that Inuyasha did not want to reveal the more personal details of his strange relationship with the priestess.

Instead, Sango observed the sounds of the meadow around them. They weren't much further away from Maytown, the first town along the trail to Seafront; most of the remaining journey, however, would be had through forests. Their area of the world was woody; humans had cleared out intermittent patches of it to reveal nutritious soil that was good for farming. Still, occasional fields broke this sea of trees--places that had once been used by humans as grazing pastures for goats and sheep. These places weren't much use as farm land anymore because the wind had cleared away the topsoil, and they were littered with broken rock and sparse, tough grasses. This meadow was typical of the meadows Sango had seen this far north.

Over the hushed autumn wind, a sudden, predatory howling rose up. Inuyasha, with practiced alertness, stood and his hand went to the sword at his side. The howling had come from some distance, so Sango didn't move into action as Inuyasha had. She only watched him, deciding that he was trying to gauge how far away the threat had been. A chorus of animal cries soon broke out, accompanied by cackles and demonic screeches. From so far away the noises were just echoes of the original cacophony.

"I imagine the demons will be bolder from now on," Sango admitted, "now that they have the moon within their grasp. Nothing good can come from hindering the moon on her journey."

Inuyasha made a low growling noise in his throat that astonished Sango. She had heard the same noise from a tribe of wolf demons that had been antagonizing a village in the mountains, and his imitation was perfect enough that it stirred up memories of the fight with them.

"Damn it, we can't stay here," Inuyasha snapped suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"We have to hurry to that damn priest," Inuyasha huffed.

"We have to eat first, Inuyasha. Or rather, _I_ have to eat first." Inuyasha had finished his share of the meal with alarming speed. Sango watched warily as Inuyasha paced back and forth across the dirt and short grass. She noticed for the first time that he was bereft of shoe. In trying to calm him, Sango changed the topic and allowed her curiosity to return. "Inuyasha, where did you live before you came to protect Priestess Kagome?"

"Mind your own business," he barked sharply. "You can stay here if you want, but I'm not waiting. Kagome is in danger."

"I think at present the villages are more in danger than Kagome is." Sango smoothed out the wrinkles of her tunic and watched Inuyasha keenly. "If we do not eat and have the proper amount of sleep, we will not be at our full strength if we are confronted by a demon." Inuyasha at first seemed bewildered and then the subtle change brought on by epiphany appeared on his face.

In his natural form, Inuyasha was rarely worn out and hunger never interfered with his fighting performance. In fact it seemed the opposite; the more he fought, the more energized he became. But he knew that humans did not possess this ability--he knew that from the times he had been forced to fight in his human form. Humans lost their strength very quickly. He remembered the pain from his wounds, which had healed at a rapid pace during the day when he was in his natural form, and how they had slowed him down so much.

He grunted and sat heavily across from the fire again and continued to brood while Sango ate. The noises in the distance surged and quieted, surged and quieted. Sango finished eating. Inuyasha began cleaning up the camp site, putting out the fire and stirring up the ashes inside the ring of stones.

"Inuyasha, is there any reason you might be followed by a demon?" she asked of her companion while sprinkling water onto the still warm firewood.

Inuyasha rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand and threw down the stick he had been using to stir the ashes. "I don't think so, or the demon wouldn't have run off last night." He hated to admit it outright, even if only to himself, but the battle had not been going in his favor. The female was not there to kill him, but merely to distract him. Inuyasha knew this now and it enraged him.

"Can you describe the demon to me?" Sango asked as she gathered up her few belongings--mostly weapons--and began moving onward. "In case we see her again, I'll at least have some clue."

Inuyasha doubted that they would see the demon again, but formed a jagged answer. "Tall, humanoid. Short black hair. Red eyes. Controlled wind magic. I couldn't get her smell because--" he stopped short, watching Sango tensely. The slayer was nonplussed. "I couldn't get a smell."

"Alright. We should be at the town soon."

* * *

The King of the Wood growled deeply from his chest like a hunting cat. He was watching the battle at the human village with the help of the mirror that belonged to the small demon. She cradled it in her palm with straight stillness.

"Kagura," the King grunted without taking his eyes from the mirror. The image was following one demon in particular; this was its capability. It could follow only one being at a time, one who was enchanted to be "tied" to it. One demon would be chosen, tied to it, and then the King could see through that demon's eyes. The King wanted to improve upon the original magic so that it was more forgiving and useful, but he had no time now to ponder how to make those changes.

The tall female demon moved gracefully and angrily forward. She hated the so-called King of the Wood. As his first creation, she had the misfortune of being the least perfect. She was given assignments that never appealed to her wild, windy nature and she was kept always under his careful control. Kagura craved the autonomous lifestyle of other demons and despised her keeper.

"What?" she asked scathingly.

"Did you kill that half-demon last night?" he asked without reprimanding her for her tone of voice, watching as a human male slung his sword straight at the thick neck of the demon who was being traced by the enchanted mirror. The battle scene turned misty and vanished as the creature lost its head, leaving the King of the Wood only with his own reflection. "How did these humans know we would attack?"

"You didn't tell me to kill Inuyasha," Kagura stated simply. "You told me to fight him and to distract him. I imagine he went off and told the humans, traitor that he is to our kind."

"You bitch!" the King howled in a sudden fit of unchecked rage. Kagura smiled inwardly but appeared impassive. If she could not disobey her master, she could at least do as little as possible to contribute to his plans and do as much as possible to agitate him. She had no love for Inuyasha or for the priestess he guarded, but they didn't bother her more than any other mortal did. She was content with roaming the world only at night time, when the wind was fresh and cool, and she did not have any desire to fight in human villages. The full strength she felt on the night of the new moon did not entice her the same way it enticed the King of the Wood.

The King of the Wood pulled his bony fingers through his hair in barely contained fury, trying to regain the composure he so rarely lost. He addressed Kagura belligerently. "Go find him. Kill him this time. Kill him right away. Kill him quickly. Find him immediately. Do not delay killing him when you see him, and do not delay in finding him." He hoped that these orders were precise enough to prevent any other mishap. Kagura did not resist, as she could not resist any of his orders; she took flight and began her mission.

The King turned to the small demon. "Kanna," he said to her, "you may go now." She bowed and left him silently, tucking her mirror away.

* * *

Kagome, in her constant dream, watched the lips of her mirror-self carefully. _Inuyasha,_ the woman on the other side mouthed. Kagome nodded, indicating that she understood the imperative.

"How do I find him, though?" she mumbled to herself. She looked up at the sky, golden and warm. Here in her dream it was summer. When she walked away from the barrier and onto the drawbridge, she could see an ocean stretching out before her. The water was reasonably smooth, chopped by small breakers and blemished with thin whitecaps but otherwise looking undisturbed. The air coming off of it was sultry and sticky. It was a pleasant place. Suddenly it came to her that it would not be a terrible fate to remain here. Peacefully she smiled and moved across the drawbridge. She wandered through the rough dunes, picking her way through swaying sea oats and soft crotin. Soon she moved down to the foredunes and stepped her way over colorful evening primrose and purple morning glories. As these faded, she went across the soft gold sand and around tiny holes dug by crabs. At the tideline, she met the warm water with joy. The sand was littered with the sea's refuse: stacks of red kelp were just beyond her touch; bits of broken seashells and sea glass sharpened the sand and sea beans lent it the pebbly appearance of a lakeshore.

She sat down on the wet shoreline and allowed the green waters to lap her feet. Serenely she watched the pearly clouds move across the sky at a slow, regal pace.

After so many years of offering her power to be the moon, tension and anxiety leaked away from her before she realized it had been there. How content she felt now, not in any immediate danger. There were no demons jumping for her, no one who wanted to kill her or hurt her or even disturb her. Every day since inheriting her powers she had feared for her life... but here, no such worries troubled her. She smiled, closed her eyes, and allowed the quiet rush of the sea to calm her and the warm breeze to comfort her.

Outside her dream, in the woods where her coffin lay, the candle-flame was steady and bright.

* * *

Sango felt that she was in fact a patient person; being a hunter had taught her to wait for hours in the same position, or to concentrate on following a faint trail. It had taught her how to be silent and slow to learn the habits of a new enemy. However, her careful patience was being worn away by Inuyasha. He was a constant busybody who was incapable of restraining his own rude nature. He was always wanting to move and was adamantly against using the night for sleep; he insisted on disappearing during the day. Sango could tell that he was tired by the dark circles under his puffy eyes and his increasing lack of focus and direction. Even if he did disappear at the sun's light, she was sure he wasn't resting.

At the moment, he was griping about the slowness with which human beings moved as they worked their way through a small grove of trees that grew between Maytown and Marling City. They had been pursuing this track for the greater portion of the early night, and Inuyasha had clearly grown tired of the landscape as moonless midnight approached.

"What do you want, then? We can't afford horses. Inuyasha, get control over yourself. We are doing the best we can to help Priestess Kagome."

"Quiet, you!" Inuyasha snapped as he unsheathed his sword, listening intently to his surroundings. His usual half-demon senses were gone, but he retained some of his former ability to pick out disturbances in his surroundings from being a solitary hunter for the greater portion of his life. He could tell when the usual pattern of things was anomalous. "Come out!"

Sango warily readied her boomerang, wondering if she was either getting careless or if Inuyasha was beginning to hallucinate. Inuyasha pricked a puffy growth of woodruff with his sword with a rapid burst of energy; a childlike squeal rose up from the greenery and a small boy with a fox-tail emerged with clear indignation.

"What was that for, you lousy human?" he groused.

"A demon? But what are you doing out here?" Sango asked as Inuyasha swiped the fox child up by his bottlebrush tail, still holding his sword in his other hand. "I didn't think demons lived in places like this." It was unusual for a demon to be here--this area was a humanized, small bunch of trees with pathways moving between two villages. It wasn't traveled at nighttime so it failed to offer good hunting for creatures like demons, and during the day demons were more vulnerable to the humans who traveled in great numbers for the more southern villages.

"Let me go!" the fox demanded. "I happen to like it here!"

Inuyasha gave an unbelieving snort while Sango raised an eyebrow. "A demon who likes to live on human roads?"

The fox child glared at them both and ceased his struggling. "Yeah, what of it? It's easier to hunt food where there aren't any other demons."

Sango rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe you can help us," she suggested thoughtfully. As a demon-hunter, she knew that there were many species that did not attack or feed on humans; she had actually been aided by a great cat demon, Kirara, in the past on one of her most dangerous hunts. Inuyasha, on the other hand, clearly held qualms with this belief. He looked at her with a deadpan expression and the fox watched her suspiciously, not knowing why a human would trust him.

Sango clarified by saying, "You're a demon, after all, you may have information we need. We're looking for the priestess of the moon. Do you know what's happened to her?"

"No..." the boy said. "That would be the King of the Wood's fault, not mine. I don't have anything to do with him! He killed my parents," the boy said sadly as he squirmed, trying to free himself from Inuyasha.

"King of the Wood?" Inuyasha repeated. "Explain."

The kid wrinkled up his nose and after a moment said, "Alright, I'll tell you everything I know if you do something for me."

"What's that?" Sango asked as Inuyasha gave the boy a shake.

"Well, I've been isolated in this grove for a long time," he said, glaring at Inuyasha but no longer wriggling. "I can't leave because I don't want to join the King of the Wood and I'm bored of this place. So let me go with you."

"Go with us?!" Inuyasha shouted. "You don't even know where we're going, kiddo! Besides, you just said you liked it here!"

"Yes I do know where you're going!" he yelled back. "You just told me you were looking for the moon! That means you'll have to find the King! I want to help fight him, too!"

"Of all the--"

"Inuyasha, wait," Sango ordered. "That sounds like a fair trade." When Inuyasha glowered at her, Sango continued, "It's true that we'll eventually have to confront whomever stole Priestess Kagome. If we have willing strength and even knowledge about her kidnapper, we shouldn't complain. We should welcome it."

"Keh," Inuyasha mumbled as he dropped the kit to the ground. The boy straightened himself up with as much nobility as he could manage, brushing off his clothes and straightening his red hair. "Whatever. When he turns us all into this king of the jungle maniac it'll be your fault, not mine."

"What can you tell us about the King of the Wood?" Sango said without bothering to reply to Inuyasha. "We've never heard of him before."

"Well, before I was born, a demon started taking over all the forest territories. By now all the demons in the forest are loyal to him. In return he makes sure they get enough to eat and that kind of stuff." The fox picked at his tail and the small group began walking on towards Marling at Inuyasha's insistence. "I know that he killed a lot of demons who didn't want to join him. My parents were killed by him because they wouldn't join him, and I escaped to this place. I haven't heard much about him since then, except I know he lives really deep in the woods somewhere."

"Thank you for telling us," Sango said. "I'm Sango, and this is Inuyasha."

At this introduction, the fox looked up at Inuyasha with narrowed eyes. "I thought Inuyasha was the name of that half-breed loser who buddied up with the priestess! Anyway, no real human has that name! But you don't _smell_ like a half-breed..."

Inuyasha swatted the kid before crossing his arms across his chest. "Shut up, puny punk." Inwardly he was shaken that he had some sort of reputation in the demon world--none of them had ever taken much account of him before. Did they make fun of him for protecting a human? If so, he wouldn't stand for that. He would make every last one of them regret such dishonor... and anyway, he wasn't protecting Kagome because he liked humans. Far from it! He was guarding Kagome so that his demonic powers didn't go away. Or so he told himself with a great deal of conviction.

Sango watched this exchange and the rapid change of emotions on Inuyasha's face with interest but did not belabor the clearly tense matter. Instead, she asked, "What's your name?"

"I'm Shippou," the fox said cheerfully. "I'm a fox demon, but fox demons don't eat people."

"No, but you do eat our chickens," Sango said. "We don't appreciate that, either." Shippou gave her a sheepish look as the trio continued onward.

"Where are we going right now?" Shippou asked.

"We're going to Marling," Sango told him. "After that we're going through Tripton and finally arriving at Seafront."

"Look what I found!" Shippou exclaimed happily, having already forgotten his former question. With childish enthusiasm, he produced an earth worm for Sango to see as he jumped up onto her arm. Sango forced a smile and patted him on the head. At least, she told herself, Shippou was more companionable that Inuyasha. She sighed as Shippou flung the earth worm into Inuyasha's black hair with a delighted, playful yip. Inuyasha immediately gave chase with a holler of rage and Sango hunched over, dragging a hand down her face as she resigned herself to fate as a babysitter.


	3. Chapter 3

THE WANDERER'S KEEPER

Chapter 03

* * *

Kagome knew there was something that she had to do, and she also knew that it was immediate. For her to not do this something would be perilous not just for her, but for someone else or maybe even for many others as well. Unfortunately, this urgency was belied by the warm calm of the ocean. What, she asked herself, could possibly be so important? She was content to watch the waves sweep endlessly back and forth, with no real recollection of the more acute details of her life. In sitting on the strand, she had let leak away all her memories and self-awareness. Some little fear worried at her heart and mind, however.

The sound of the sea was frighteningly familiar to her although she had never before seen a sea or ocean; at least she could not recall if she had ever seen one before. Suddenly she made the connection. It was very similar to the sound of a strong wind simpering in the trees. A quiet rush. A rattling rush. A natural rush. The rush of the waves reaching for the moon. Someone whom she kept safe with the moon's power. _Inuyasha._ Without her, his normal power was gone--at least in the night. He could not protect himself in the demons' territory without the strength her moonlight offered, and she already knew that no human village would accept him. He would be alone in all the world.

Without her, many people from those human villages would die at the hands of demons; maybe many already had.

She turned away and resolutely drew herself from the water's edge. Over the dunes, she returned to the castle with its barrier. The woman so much like a physical twin to her was still there, and showed signs of barely contained panic as Kagome approached the invisible wall again.

_Inuyasha,_ the woman mouthed.

"Where?" Kagome mouthed back. The woman beckoned to the open castle entranceway. Beyond the door it was dark; Kagome could see nothing, whether the door opened onto a fashionably decorated foyer or a great hall or something else. She did not know if it was empty or was made lively by endless numbers of guests. She could only trust that the woman on the other side indeed knew that Inuyasha was there.

This black haired woman urged her, mouthing the name repeatedly and pointing towards the door. Still, something nagged at the back of Kagome's mind, much like the memory of the forest had. Something that kept her from whole-heartedly wanting to pass through the barrier. She allowed one hand to rest on the wall. What could be bothering her about this situation? She looked again at the door, and knew that it was intimidating because of its gaping blackness; it was like a hole. It wasn't unnatural, however; she was in the bright, direct sunlight of summer and the door was shielded by an overhanging of stone decoration. Of course she could not see into it.

No, it wasn't the lack of light emitting from this door that so bothered her. It was something else.

_Inuyasha._

She turned to look across the green courtyard, full of turmoil and fear even as the shy scent of lilacs and tulips intermingled in the feathery breeze around her, almost whispering to her to be calm, to be at peace. Kagome wished foolishly that Inuyasha was with her, that he was able to help her now. With resignation she told herself that she could not depend on him now. She had to rely wholly on herself. She looked up once more at her twin, determined to discover her purpose.

* * *

The King of the Wood's first battle had started messily but the collective demons' superior strength was enough to win in the end. Although the element of surprise had been ruined by Kagura's carelessness, the King was pleased to note that here was his first human village, totally under his control. A number of humans had escaped northward, and he had sent demons out to destroy these people before they could reach neighboring villages and warn them about the attacks or bring back help. The other humans were as farm animals to him: the King kept jealous stock of them, allowing out for food a limited number to keep his followers interested. Although the shouting, crying, whimpering, and empty threats of the human beings grated on his sense of peace constantly, he knew better than to kill his entire supply right away. He would need human beings for labor in his growing territories, and as rewards for his most loyal demons.

He came to the village once a night to enforce discipline and offer fear with his presence, but he mostly left this job to one of his other creations, whom he called Musou, who was created specifically to endure sunlight. Musou was not prone to fits of rage; he kept a delightfully amiable tone of voice even as he broke a little girl's arm to make an example of what happened to crybabies. This, too, was specially tailored into his personality. He was the King's newest creation and the most finely crafted. The King of the Wood took especial pride in this monster.

Meanwhile, the King stayed well-hidden in his woods and plotted for the next take over.

He was slightly worried that he had yet to hear from Kagura. He hoped that she had caught Inuyasha and was dallying on her return trip, as she was wont to do; he regretted not adding an imperative to also _return _immediately. Still, the thought of Inuyasha extending the word of the priestess' disappearance meant that humans would be more prepared for fighting. Surely they were already, all over the world, becoming more alert due to the lack of moon rising in the sky; with confirmation of Kagome's abduction, they would be twice as alert. He had to act fast before the humans could gather and make a concerted effort against him.

"Kanna," he said, "has Kagura contacted you?" The small demon shook her head negatively before resuming a relaxed but attentive pose, awaiting any further orders. "Well, we can no longer wait for her. We must move out tonight."

* * *

"Finally," Inuyasha grunted as his feet met the first crumbled cobbles of Seafront. Shippou and Sango beside him shared his sentiments, although Sango remained voiceless to the matter and Shippou nervously scampered away and hid in the surrounding landscape, bidding Inuyasha and Sango to hurry on their business and warning them not to leave without him. He wouldn't enter the human village.

"Why we should bother coming back for you is what I'd like to know," Inuyasha grumped as they left the kit behind. Inuyasha was even more upset with Shippou than he had been upon their first meeting because the small fox demon made sure he was present when Inuyasha changed into his half-demon form. For the past day the kit had been threatening to tell Sango about this secret, not that Inuyasha was entirely sure that Sango would turn on him at this point. She had, after all, befriended the full-blooded demon Shippou, to Inuyasha's own horror and surprise.

"Don't worry, Shippou," Sango said encouragingly as she followed Inuyasha into town. "We won't leave you. We made a deal." With reluctance Shippou accepted this and waved good bye.

"So, Inuyasha," Sango said conversationally as they moved toward the temple in the town center. "You're actually a half-demon, correct?"

"What the he--"

"Don't bother, it's pretty obvious to me. I'm a demon hunter, Inuyasha. I know demonic behavior pretty well. I just have a question for you."

Inuyasha glared, mentally swearing at Shippou, whom he was sure had shared the secret of his heritage, but did not forbid her from asking her question. Sango had learned to accept this as encouragement to finish her thought.

"Why are you so loyal to Priestess Kagome?"

"My power is related to the moon," Inuyasha told her slowly with suspicion, eyes narrowed and lips thin. Sango could tell she had touched a sensitive nerve. "Without the moon, I'm a human."

Sango nodded and carefully offered, "I thought so. But why Priestess Kagome in particular? If she were to die, another priestess would take her place. It's always been that way. Any given priestess doesn't live more than a handful of years. You seem to be attached to her."

"What?!"

"It's just professional curiosity, Inuyasha," Sango insisted, realizing that she had found the center of that particular issue. In reality she wondered if there was more to the relationship between Inuyasha and Kagome than the half-demon was allowing her to see, and his violent agitation and sputtering only confirmed a suspicion. "I'd like to know how demons grow attached to one another outside of pack mentality."

"Ask Shippou about _his _behaviors!" Inuyasha yelled before he stomped off in a more hurried pace for the temple. Sango did not press the matter. When they arrived at the temple entrance shouting for assistance, it was to be met by the priest himself; a young man with dark hair neatly trimmed and held in place at the nape of his neck in a ponytail flashed a winning smile their way, despite being so obviously tired at the hour that Inuyasha and Sango had chosen to awaken him. The huntress found this particularly encouraging; perhaps for a brief moment she would be treated to pleasant company.

"How may I help the lovely lady and the gentleman?" he asked, reminding Sango more of a swindler than a priest.

"We need help regarding the moon," Sango explained.

"Ah, I'm terribly sorry," the priest said as he glanced upwards at the star-swathed sky, "but I cannot control the moon. Unfortunately, something has happened to our special moon priestess, so--"

"We know all that!" Inuyasha barked rudely. "We were sent here because Kagome was kidnapped. The old lady said to come find you for a blessing to help us find Kagome."

Sango smiled apologetically. "Perhaps we'd better go inside and tell you what we know, so that you may help us restore the priestess to her rightful duties."

The priest, eyes wide, nodded and bowed them into the temple. They all sat down around a plain wooden table in a small side kitchen, part of the priest's own living quarters. He invited them to continue their story after introducing himself as Miroku and lighting an oil lamp in the center of the table. A fire was already burning in the stove for warmth and light. As Inuyasha rushed through the tale, Miroku paid careful attention to any detail offered and followed the story with rapt attention. He was curious about the fox demon Shippou, but did not interrupt Inuyasha as he grumpily finished. A moment of silence overcame the company.

"Well, there's this," Miroku said at last. He took up Sango's hands in his own and dramatically proclaimed, "Produce me an heir for the sake of Priestess Kagome." There was a stunned moment of silence before Sango slapped the priest and Inuyasha growled.

"We haven't got time for games," Sango said in a low, urgent voice. "The more we delay in finding the priestess, the more people undoubtedly become the property or food of demons. Are you the priest or aren't you? If you are, please assist us in the way Kaede mentioned."

The priest nodded with the same pleasant expression he had maintained for most of the night. "Alright. I can prepare a blessing for Inuyasha's sword, but I'll need some raw materials. The herbwife comes in early every morning from her native island and we can commence the spell then."

Sango accepted this but Inuyasha was clearly agitated. "Is there anything we can do in the meantime to keep Inuyasha engaged? I don't want him ripping up people's houses for the sake of having something to do."

Miroku chuckled. "Well, let's go down to the docks. The herbwife will be there in a few hours to set up shop; she usually doesn't let us purchase anything until dawn, but maybe she will be more yielding in our current trouble. You can see the ocean while we're there."

When they arrived, Inuyasha went to the edge of a short deck and stared out at the water; he was much calmer now than he had been at the temple. He couldn't stand being inside human buildings. He snorted as the more natural surroundings soothed him slightly.

The sea roared below him. It had been years since he had been anywhere near the ocean, and it was nice to feel the humid, heavy air again lifting up his tangled black hair. The salty smell was crisp and the atmosphere was muggy. Although it was difficult to see with his human eyes, he could see the pale reflections of stars sparking in the water even as a few clouds began to form overhead. The water lapped listlessly against the wooden poles of the deck, as if trying to swallow it up.

Sango came up beside him. Inuyasha pretended not to notice her and concentrated on the chaotic, lively movement of the swells.

"Do you not like the sea?" Sango prompted.

"I like the sea just fine," he grumbled.

Hesitantly, Sango began to say something and then hushed herself. She had never been quite good at consoling others, and Inuyasha was a particularly difficult person to communicate with. Instead, she let her gaze roam over the steely water searchingly before glancing up at the sky, now filling even more thickly with dim clouds. The stars were disappearing behind this dark mantle. The wind was chill and moist. As she rubbed her hands together for warmth and comfort, Miroku approached them.

"What troubles you, Inuyasha?" Miroku asked boldly, to Sango's amazement.

"I miss Kagome," he admitted before he could think of an answer, shocking even himself as he realized he had voiced such a statement. How could he miss one puny human girl? He had not even admitted to himself how much he missed her; he blamed this intense feeling on being in his human body, which was always more prone to emotion.

"Priestess Kagome?" Miroku pressed. Sango was also watching with piqued interest.

Inuyasha scowled. "Yeah."

Miroku nodded. "How did you meet Priestess Kagome?"

Grudgingly, haltingly, Inuyasha said, "I met her just after she inherited her powers. She was at that crabby old hermit's place to receive her moon thingy." All moon priestesses had a globe fashioned for them by a moon priest; becoming the moon each night without the physical object was a lot of work and each priestess only did so in the small amount of time it took to receive her own orb. Usually, a priestess could not do this after some time of using a physical object. A sort of dependency grew between her and the sphere, as if the sphere took on some of her limited power permanently. It was true that a strong relationship between the sphere and priestess was undeniably present.

The two spiritual powers were polarized: the earthy moon priest crafted the sphere with a special power and, if he died, would transfer his power on just as the priestess did when her more mystic power needed a new host.

"How did you get to know her?" Miroku asked patiently. He knew that something was bothering Inuyasha internally, something about Kagome. Going into the deep of the trees after the King of the Wood, even with a blessed sword, would be a difficult task. Miroku wished to know the depth of Inuyasha's devotion in such a task; if it was merely an interest of self, he would not go far. He would need to be pure-hearted in his task for the blessing he was to cast on the sword to last at all, and only with a holy sword could the darkest of demons be slain.

Inuyasha shrugged stiffly. "At the time I lived nearby there and I happened to hear her when she screamed. A demon attacked her. I killed the demon. Kagome's a friendly person so she tried to talk to me. She tricked me into escorting her back to her cottage and after that I just protected her." He could remember the moment he met her very clearly, and he silently allowed it to gush to the forefront of his mind.

_"Thank you for saving me," Kagome said with a sweet smile. "Are you a good demon, then?"_

_"Keh. I'm a_ half_-demon, and I'm not in the least concerned with human activities."_

_She laughed and reached out for his hand. "May I see?" Bewildered, Inuyasha allowed her to examine his hand. Hers was so fragile and reedy compared to his. It was hard to believe that all mankind would trust in such a weak human. But he knew that in this small body was great power._

_She was tracing a symbol on his palm; this glowed faintly for a moment and then it was gone._

_"What the hell was that, wench?" he snapped, retracting his hand with alarming speed, wary of some curse._

_"Don't worry," she told him. "That was the one-spell."_

_"Why'd you give it to me?" he asked with a cloudy expression. The one-spell was a special spell that any moon priestess could give only once. It was a protection charm; in a moment of great need, it would spark to life and offer protection against evil. "I don't need that."_

_"Well," she said. "You saved my life. Anyway, if I kept it I'd just deliberate over whom to award it to for the rest of my life." She laughed again. "I'm not going to live that much longer so I shouldn't hoard it. It's better for the spell to be doing something useful than locked up in my brain, right?" The melancholy message of her words was belied by a hopeful look in her eyes. It was true that priestesses were killed usually within four or five years after inheriting their power. It was a dangerous task, and the women involved never had a choice in becoming a priestess; they could not decline. The power only seemed to go to those who would not shun it or refuse it._

_Inuyasha snorted and disappeared into the trees._

_"Good bye," she called after him, her voice a little hurt. "Come see me sometime." He didn't just come see her sometime; when she left the next day for her cottage, her moon-sphere carefully bundled around her waist at her hip, he followed from a distance without her being aware of it. From that moment on he had protected her faithfully, never leaving her circle of existence in the forest. Even though it demanded all of his time and concentration, he never thought of it as an obligation. It was natural. It was what he was supposed to do. He never even realized he was doing it; when she asked him, he told her that it was for himself, so that he could have his full power. For a long time, he believed in that, too. But just as naturally, just as if that was what it was supposed to do, something in his heart had changed._

Inuyasha sighed and scrubbed a hand through his black hair. He _had _protected her faithfully until that solitary night when he had been distracted. In her most vulnerable moment, he had failed her.

"She gave me her one-spell," Inuyasha said quietly to the attentive humans beside him on the dock, not sparing either of them a glance. He watched the rippled water. "It was the first time I wasn't looked on in fear or hatred, and it wasn't even... forced. She's just nice. She sees through everything. I thought I needed to protect such a person as that, so I swore to be her champion."

Inuyasha closed his eyes and tightened his hand into a fist by his side. It was clear to him now that Kagome had somehow changed him. He was protecting her not just so that she would be the moon each night. He was protecting her because she was Kagome. "I won't stop being her champion now. I won't give up."


	4. Chapter 4

THE WANDERER'S KEEPER

Chapter 04

* * *

Kagome was sitting at the drawbridge, watching the sea and sky move against each other asymptotically. But instead of slipping back into a peaceful stasis, she was trying to decide what to do about the barrier. The woman on the other side only mouthed _Inuyasha_ over and over again with no other instructions. That was worrying as well as frustrating to Kagome. She couldn't figure out why her mirror self was so adamantly encouraging Inuyasha's name; did it indicate that, subconsciously, she knew that Inuyasha was in some sort of trouble?

Perhaps Inuyasha had a dream here, too; perhaps she needed to find him to break down the wall. Kagome's brow furrowed. She stood and moved back across the courtyard, where the other woman waited.

"Help me!" Kagome demanded.

_Inuyasha,_ the woman said.

"How?" Kagome begged, banging her hands against the divider. "Tell me how to help him!" She reached up as far as she could, but the wall remained there, an invisible and sturdy divider. It began to curve, she could feel, when she stood on tip-toe; like a giant dome that covered the castle and her twin. Suddenly something connected in her brain; suddenly this dome meant something to her. An overwhelming fear darkened her thoughts as she realized what it was she must do.

Kagome's eyes widened and she looked at the woman, her heart sinking. "I can't do it!" The woman only nodded ferociously. "I can't!"

* * *

Inuyasha, Sango, and Miroku were standing in a small breezeway between the temple proper and the vicarage. Among the decaying summer plants was a large oak tree with strips of parchment, inked with praises and prayers, hanging from the limbs. The trio stood beneath its shade with a small pan of water, mixed with several holy plants that Miroku had purchased from the herbwife as soon as they had convinced her to sell her stock immediately. Miroku stood over the pan and with closed eyes hummed a prayer.

Inuyasha, in his half-demon form in the wan morning light, waited with almost unconcealed impatience until finally Miroku spoke. "Hold out the sword that would do the moon's work."

Without fanfare, Inuyasha thrust his sword evenly into the air, with its tip pointing at Miroku's stomach. With a chant spoken in a different tongue, Miroku lowered his body without bending his back or moving his head. With the sword tip now at his forehead, he dunked his hand into lukewarm mixture in the pan and began sprinkling water on the sword. He moved down the sword from its base to tip; when he reached the end, he said three words and then repeated the process once more, and then a final time.

The sword seemed to make Inuyasha's hand tingle with an excited energy he could not name. At a command from Miroku, the entire blade emitted a powerful, silvery light in a sudden blast; this faded momentarily into a pale, steady glow.

Miroku looked up with weariness in his eyes. "Before you go," he said, "let's try a premonition."

Inuyasha grunted but Sango approved of the suggestion. Miroku kneeled down and spoke enticingly in the foreign tongue. In a voice not his own, he said, _"One with many hearts; the left, O bold one, is for reaching, and the right is for unrighting. Speak with fervor. Dreams are poison in the woods."_

"That doesn't make any sense!" Inuyasha yelled. "I thought you were going to tell us the future!"

Miroku smiled tiredly. "I can't do that. I can only be given small bits of information."

"I've wondered," Sango said, "how come holy people so seldom offer premonitions. Is there some oath you have to take?"

"No," Miroku said evenly. "But a premonition is an exchange. Every time one of us offers one, we sacrifice some of our life in return."

"Some of your life?! We shouldn't have--"

"Please," said Miroku. "It's the least I can do." He smiled dazzlingly at Sango, who was clearly distressed by the news. "But it pleases me that you care so much. You can always bear my first born ch--" Sango cut him off with a slap.

"Quit it, we're wasting time!" Inuyasha barked. "Get us out of this place!"

"One moment," Sango said, recovering from her blush. "We don't know _where_ in the forest Kagome is."

"Maybe your friend Shippou can help," Miroku suggested. Sango shook her head, explaining that Shippou didn't know exactly where the King of the Wood was. Finally, the priest hesitantly said, "Allow me to assist you. I can divine directions to help make our path more accurate." At this, the three moved out of the town from behind the temple, well away from the other humans who might react harshly to Inuyasha's presence.

* * *

Kagura was surprised at how difficult it had been to find Inuyasha. He had moved quickly, with some clear goal in mind; that would not have pleased the King of the Wood but to her it was of no real importance. She had finally found Inuyasha, just outside of Seafront, along with his strange companions. She narrowed her eyes, wondering why he was accompanied by a demon-slayer from the islands, a fox demon child, and a priest.

Shrugging, she dropped gracefully from the trees in front of them and smiled as all four readied for action. Inuyasha had pulled out his sword without flourish, which Kagura noted had a semi-transparent glow about it, while the fox hid behind his legs and the demon-slayer and priest readied their assorted human weapons.

"Hello again, Inuyasha," she drawled sumptuously.

"Where's Kagome, you bitch?" Inuyasha growled in a low voice. He felt that Kagura was especially bold to attack him in the daylight, but, unknown to him, Kagura always had to follow her orders strictly. She had been told to kill Inuyasha immediately, not to wait for a more opportune time. Even if it meant her power was not at its fullest while Inuyasha's was.

Kagura chuckled wickedly. "She is with the King Naraku in his 'court'. But enough talk!" With that, Kagura flung her right arm up into the air, clutching a paper fan, and pulled down a large sweep of wind over the party gathered before her. They braced themselves and when the wind cleared Kagura prepared her first attack. As she flung up debris with the wind that she so languidly controlled, Inuyasha rushed forward and met her short hunting knife, held in her other hand, with his sword. The metallic clang rang out in a flat note over the otherwise idyllic calm of the tree grove.

"You're mine! You'll pay for what you did!" Inuyasha snarled. Kagura only laughed lightly, throwing him back with a powerful thrust of her blade while she continued to twirl the fan in the air around them. While they parried, Miroku kneeled to the ground and chanted; from his staff erupted a bubble of holy energy that kept the wind from Sango, Shippou, and himself. Sango desperately watched the fight for a way to cut in, but the demons before her fought with lightning-fast ferocity. Inuyasha was not one to coordinate battle efforts, but Sango knew that he could not defeat this powerful demon singly-handed.

Inuyasha nicked Kagura's wrist as they moved between the trees. Kagura was furious, hurling gusts of winds in chaotic twists and sudden gusts to help give her the advantage, but Inuyasha remained solidly on his feet. His balance was enviable. The wind blasted against the holy field Miroku supported, but it remained in tact even despite the noise it caused.

"Miroku," Sango spoke above the gale, voice almost lost, "I thought demons couldn't stand the daylight? It doesn't bother Shippou at all and this demon doesn't seem to be impaired by it."

"I'm not sure what's afoot, Lady Sango." A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and Shippou made no move to answer Sango's worries. To keep them protected from the gulfs of wind was a trying task for Miroku, especially with Shippou shivering and clinging in fright to his arm. Sango carefully observed the surroundings; the copse of trees wasn't especially thick, and murky, rainy gray light lit it very clearly. She could sense no other demons or any special enchantments about the place that would allow the female demon any special advantages.

With nothing from that angle to try, Sango looked for any place where she herself could gain a fighting position. She did not wish to use her boomerang for fear of hurting Inuyasha, and she hesitated to move in for hand-to-hand combat in the acceptance that she might only get in Inuyasha's way.

Suddenly, she spotted an opening. The demon had flung Inuyasha's sword out of his hand and had backed him against a tree. With the wind howling sorrowfully in great teeming gales and peels, the red-eyed wind witch was delivering a solemn soliloquy, facing away from the small group as if she had forgotten all about them. Without a moment's hesitation, Sango dove from the protective bubble and drove a long dagger first through the demon's back between the shoulder blades, and then across the woman's neck so that the head was partially severed.

The demon slumped down to the ground, dead. Sango hacked off the remainder of the head at the neck in case the demon could reattach it, and ordered someone to start a fire in order to burn the body to prevent it from possible regeneration, reassembly, or multiplication. But before anyone could move to start a fire, the body sizzled away to ash and left only a still-beating heart with a puncture wound on the scorched ground. Tense and ready for another battle, the group watched it. Inuyasha sliced his sword through the center of the heart and hit something hard; the bloody tissue peeled away like layers of shed onion skin and revealed a wooden peg. He cleaved this in half and it, too, whispered away to dust.

After a moment, Inuyasha sheathed his sword at his left hip and grumpily continued onward, as if nothing at all had happened despite the bloody marks on his body and the sweat that damped his hair. Meanwhile, Sango and Miroku calmed a worried Shippou and followed belatedly.

"That was no ordinary demon," Miroku said. "What was the wooden core?"

"That means it's a golem," Sango replied with a distracted look on her face. Inuyasha perked one white canine ear in her direction and listened. "We might not be dealing with a demon at all as the King of the Wood."

"What do you mean? This Naraku that the witch spoke of?" Miroku pressed.

"This Naraku, this King of the Wood, may be a demon, but he may also be a human wizard who has sold his soul for power. For Kagome's sake and ours, I hope it's the former."

* * *

"What do you mean, Kagura failed?" the King growled out to Kanna, who remained unperturbed.

"I felt it. Kagura has died." The King placed a hand on his forehead and thought for a moment. It was true that Kagura had been his first creation and thus the weakest, but she was no ordinary golem. If she had been an average golem, he would have expected her to die long ago. But each of his golems carried something special. There had never been creatures like them before. They were not just puppets; they were pieces of himself--they were pure malicious energy wrapped in a demon's skin. And even Kagura, the lesser of all his most elite warriors, should have been almost impervious to attack. Things were not going according to plan.

"Kanna, prepare to move out tonight for the human village Marling." Kanna bowed out of his presence and went adroitly to her appointed task.

The King of the Wood turned westward and walked in the comfortable, dark gloom of his realm. He stopped when he reached the edge of the light cast off by the candle in Kagome's hands. His eyes narrowed in suspicion and concern as he noticed the flame suddenly shrink and grow, shrink and grow, in a seemingly endless cycle, despite the utter stillness of the air around them.

* * *

Miroku and Sango were distressed to learn that three separate villages had fallen under the control of Naraku, those being Timple, Rintown, and Spindle's. Shippou was fairly indifferent himself, but Inuyasha said that this gave them a good indicator of where the King of the Wood was located. Miroku admitted that after a brief chant and throwing down his staff, which pointed toward the woods, that it indeed looked as if their enemy was in that direction.

"I can't believe Naraku was so close to where you and Kagome lived," Shippou burbled nervously. Inuyasha grunted in answer as he stepped into the first line of trees. Pulling his sword out of its sheath, he was momentarily dazzled by its now brilliant, moony glow. The group moved together, almost as one body, deeper and deeper into the forest. After hours of walking, the canopy thickened. Eventually they could see only by the light cast off from the sword, which seemed to grow only brighter as they moved further through the trees.

"I think we're lost," Sango said eventually. "All these trees look the same. I can't tell if we're going to the heart of the woods anymore." Miroku murmured and threw down his staff again. They moved slowly in this way, occasionally persuading Shippou to scout around in the trees above them. Each time he reported that they were walking away from the human settlements, but he could see no end to the other side of the trees.

"It's like it goes on forever," he said as he scratched his neck nervously.

"I think we're close now," Miroku said quietly. Sango looked at him with a question in her eyes, but he only thinned his lips and listened.

Suddenly they stepped into a pale ring of light. Moving forward, they saw Kagome lying in a wooden coffin, with a candle held in her hands. The flame shrank to a tiny ember on the end of its unburned wick.

Before Inuyasha could rush to her, a male demon with long, black hair stepped between the group and Kagome. He purred delightedly as Inuyasha began to growl, baring his fangs at the demon before him.

Naraku chuckled. "Here I was, preparing to send out another demon to meet you, Inuyasha. Much to my delight, you've come to me instead."

"What have you done to Kagome?" Inuyasha growled dangerously. "Let her go!"

Naraku offered a long-suffering sigh. "I'm afraid it's too late for that, Inuyasha. Your own carelessness delivered her to me; I wouldn't deign return her to so foolish a champion if I had at all any desire to release her." Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. Without waiting for any further talk, immediately concerned with the lengthening day unseen above the treetops, he rushed forward. Sango screamed from somewhere behind him as something pierced her back.

* * *

Kagome knew what she had to do. She had to leave her dream behind; whether death or life lay beyond the door behind the barrier, she did not know. She only knew that she could not remain in a dream, where she was hurting the same people she, as a priestess, lived to help. So with all the force of her power, with every ounce of faith, love, and kindness she held in her small body, she shoved her hands against the invisible wall and began filling the dome with the twinkling light of her moon magic.

It was an immense drain; she felt her whole being pour into the bowl covering the castle. The face of the woman on the other side was filled with hopeful sadness, engulfed in that brightness that dimmed the entire world around it. Everything was soft and silent, moving surreally as if in a dream. Kagome became connected to everything around her in basic, primal way--she seemed a part of everything, in no way her own being. She could feel her power entering this dome and seeping into everything, leaving her behind.

Kagome reached a point of suspension; the whole world seemed too bright to bear, she felt isolated in one second of time; abruptly she felt a sudden disconnection from everything, as if she had been severed from what she most needed. A woman came to her then, with dark, curly hair, and she held Kagome's hand to rouse her attention. Kagome looked at her barrenly, barely knowing herself.

The woman smiled. "My name is Midoriko, Kagome. I was the first priestess of the moon." Kagome nodded, voiceless, feeling ethereal and distant, waiting for further explanation with no rush and no worry. "This is the Place of Going. When a priestess dies, she comes here to make her final act of magic. Usually I act as her guide, so that she knows right away to pass her power into the dome; in this way, the power may go on and be transferred to another woman. In your case, you were sent here artificially." Her voice wavered with echoes and distortions, as if speaking through some ever-changing tunnel. It drew Kagome's concentration into a more solid path; now she felt on the edge of a dream.

"I'm dead?" Kagome asked as something seemed to move in her heart. Her voice had an unintended tremor in it, and in the eternal light it seemed to echo and deflect in the same way as Midoriko's.

"Not yet. You have not yet emptied your power. You have been holding the magic here with you, so the moon has not risen on earth. You have been alive here." Midoriko looked in another direction, as if watching something far away. "But you have made a bold sacrifice, as all priestesses have. You have one more choice yet before you." Midoriko gave Kagome her full attention once more. Kagome nodded in acceptance, knowing what she must do for the sake of all other humans on earth, for the sake of Inuyasha. In her she felt an almost unbearable conflicting. She felt both weak and strong.

"I only regret I didn't know when I was on earth," Kagome told Midoriko quietly, voice almost dying out, like an ember. "I regret I did not realize and tell him."

"That is the regret of most people," Midoriko said before being gone suddenly; simply there and then not. Kagome moved through the light of her power to one dark spot that seemed infinitely far away from her. The door of the castle. A feeling of loss swept over her; this magic that had painfully become such a demanding part of her own spirit and soul, so much a part of her that it was no longer an independent thing about her but her defining characteristic, was leaving her as easily as it had come. Without it she felt empty and wasted, a heartless desert in which there was no life. As her bare toe touched the darkness at the edge of the threshold, she felt like paper: thin, folding up inside itself, becoming as nothing.

"Wait."

Kagome turned to the new voice, stepping away from the bleak blackness; it was the woman who had seemed to her a twin, the one who had urged her at the barrier. "My name is Kikyou. I was the priestess before you."

"Thank you for your help."

Kikyou brushed this remark away. "I'm not meant to confront you here, but I want to tell you. This power we have all shared is called the Shikon, the Four Souls. We have all died to protect it, to protect the people of earth from those who would do them harm."

"I understand," said Kagome, knowing that no matter how empty she felt, she could not hang on to something so precious. Kikyou smiled gently. She knew the exact feelings of Kagome's hurting heart. It was something that each priestess felt in her final moments. A weaker person would turn away greedily with this power. A priestess could not resist sacrificing it to save the lives of thousands of others.

"Then let me tell you something important, something I have learned since I came here, something that I alone know. I think you are pure-hearted enough." Kagome listened to what Kikyou had to say with earnest attention, feeling her emotions wobble within her like an unsure foal. Kikyou was holding her hand, trying to press the importance of what she had to say into several breathless sentences. Kagome felt both frail and emboldened at the same time. Then she gratefully thanked Kikyou and moved for the dark door. She stepped over the threshold, into a world she had never before been.

Outside, in her cool hands, among the wilderness of the trees, the candle's flame went out.


	5. Chapter 5

THE WANDERER'S KEEPER

Chapter 05

* * *

Inuyasha did not notice right away that Kagome's candle flame was no longer lit. Before he engaged with Naraku, it had been a tiny spark on a wick. Now his full concentration was for the demon before him, even as he heard Miroku and Sango battling in the background against some other enemy he could not observe with any precision. In the spindly focus of his battle, Inuyasha tried to recall Miroku's prophecy; he remembered faintly something about the left, and something about the right, and something about many hearts. Nervous sweat blossomed on his brow; Naraku was far more powerful than even his golem witch had been.

While Inuyasha remained in a tight, sure-footed battle with the King of the Wood, Miroku was using holy spells to keep Kanna's mirror inactive while Sango fought her physically and Shippou lit the battlefield with foxfire. Kanna used her mirror as a shield; although she could not draw power from it, it seemed to handle the brutal beating of Sango's boomerang well enough. Sango valiantly clung to her focus and inner drive, her fighting spirit, to remain alert in the battle despite the slash in her back that Kanna had delivered with a slice of magic. She could feel blood and sweat moving down the angles of her body, rolling from between her sharp shoulder blades down the marks of her spine and across the dipped small of her back. She felt one small trickle of blood slide down her calf muscle and end in her boot.

She swung her sword against the mirror, reaching it with a cluttery, brassy clang. The rim cracked with a wooden pop, but Kanna continued its use for her protection with no discernable sign of fear or hurry.

Finally, with a strong stroke of her boomerang that caused her stomach to lurch from the pain it spiked in her back, the mirror shattered under Sango's pressure. Shippou shouted out from the branches of the trees to Sango, directing her through the battlefield so that she could avoid shards shed by the reflective surface of the enchanted mirror.

While Kanna protected her own eyes in a mechanical fashion, Sango ripped her sword from the sheath and sunk it into Kanna's small body. The small girl reacted the same way as the wind witch had when meeting her death; the body withered away to ash, leaving behind a pumping heart. Sango took care of this, slicing the core to pieces, before turning to Inuyasha's battle with labored breath.

Kanna had not been created to battle; she was a defensive pawn, to follow the battle and quietly lure enemies away. Her only score on Sango had been a cowardly move towards a turned back, a self-destructive move that Naraku had programmed into her. She had not been expected to survive an encounter. Despite the dizzying pain in her back, Sango swallowed thickly as she visually absorbed their greater foe.

Naraku, the mastermind of this demonic empire, was much more apt for battle than Kanna and Kagura had been. Inuyasha's face with littered with cuts and abrasions that bled freely. Naraku was spitting hot poison out at Inuyasha; where this liquid touched it left messy, deep burns that filled the forest with the stench of charred flesh. Blood ran down the King's temple but he paid it no mind; one of his eyes had been riddled in its socket and this sluiced fluid down his face. This wound also failed to concern him as he fought Inuyasha.

Sango noticed that Miroku had approached Kagome's grave, even as she herself searched for any way to help Inuyasha in the battle. She approached Miroku, wilted.

"This is troublesome," he said as Sango arrived at the side of the priestess, still keeping an eye on the fight going on nearby them. Shippou jumped down and looked up at Miroku for more information even as the eery blue glow of his foxfire lit Kagome's pale face. The priest placed a hand on Kagome's forehead, then moved it in front of her mouth and nose. He searched her carotid artery for a pulse and shook his head.

"Is she dead?" Sango asked quietly. Miroku nodded.

"Recently dead. We didn't arrive in time." Miroku took on a composed facial expression, with perfect calmness.

"It's an eventuality we had to be prepared for," Sango said in a hushed voice. "If she had been locked up with no way for us to free her, we would have had to kill her ourselves so that her power could pass on."

"What's in her hand?" Shippou asked, delicately removing the unlit candle so that he wouldn't touch her body. A pink marble rolled out of her hands. Before it could fall to the silty loam, a dim light erupted from Kagome's body; over a rush of wind, Naraku screeched in pain. In this moment of weakness, Inuyasha drove the holy blade into the King of the Wood's heart. The wound in his chest did not bother the demon at all--he threw himself backward and with an animal snarl lost the deliberate, elegant composure he had previously maintained.

"I will not lose to a half-demon who betrayed his own kind!" Naraku snarled.

He launched at Inuyasha before the half-demon could recover a decent position. Naraku's bare claws struck Inuyasha's throat and face with as much savage force as the demon could push into the movement. A subtle glow burst into full, cool light of silvery hue where the claws touched Inuyasha's body. Kagome's one-spell, cast so long ago, had activated and spilled forth in an electric pulse of vapid light. In that moment, with Naraku trying to cover his eyes in a wild and furious panic, Inuyasha was able to prepare for his next blow.

"You bastard!" Inuyasha yelled, leaping towards him.

"Chop off his arm, Inuyasha!" Miroku crowed. "The right arm!"

Inuyasha did not hesitate; the blade, spilling its moonlight even brighter after the gush of power from Kagome's one-spell, sliced cleanly through the right arm from the shoulder. Naraku cried out in agony and then slumped to the ground with a slow, inelegant limpness. Inuyasha removed the head from the body without delay, for safe measure, and then leaned on his blade with panting effort to catch his breath and regain his shaky balance. The body remained still and unmoving until it was burned away internally by its own poison, rashed with heat and welts. The features of the face collapsed and the skin crumbled away as the poison chewed mercilessly through the sinews and tissues of Naraku's body.

Everything blurred in Inuyasha's mind for a moment; briefly, almost imperceptibly, he lost track of where he was. He felt he was finishing a battle long ago, one that he had barely survived. Blood and sweat were caking over his body, still hot from the battle, but dimly he could feel Kagome coating his wounds with a salve. Her voice was a silky murmur he could not quite discern, but the morning light was soft around her, against him.

He came back to himself then, away from that morning in Kagome's cabin with the door open allowing in a green, soft light from the woods. Now he was in the black forest tinged with foxfire, wounds untreated. Had he fought Naraku before?

No, he shook his head to clear it. Naraku would not have left; the fight would have gone until one of them had died. He was thinking of some other time. The fever of blood loss was affecting him.

After regaining a small measure of strength, Inuyasha turned to Kagome's resting place with a dread that overpowered the shakiness of his weary body and the pain from his wounds. Miroku and Sango moved respectfully out of his way with their heads down, but Shippou remained perched on the lip of wood.

"Kagome..." Inuyasha said in a grainy voice. He collapsed to his knees, sword by his side. The holy glow cast by Miroku left it, as if whatever had produced the light died and decayed, and the blade was no more than any other sword. Inuyasha grabbed Kagome's cold hand and bent over her body with his eyes squeezed shut. He gathered her up and held her close to him; he repeated her name over and over in his head, remembering every little thing about her.

He remembered each demon that he had slain to save her life. He remember the scattered times wherein Kagome was at her most human, when she needed his nearness and support in the lonely days she passed in the woods. He remembered her sudden confessions of the envy she felt for her married brother, of the constant fear she felt when she realized that each and every day could be the last, cut short by a demon. He remembered the oaths he had made to protect her. He remembered how, in her way, she had protected _him_. How her kind words and gentle acts of pure-hearted companionship and joy healed his wounded heart; all those years of wandering alone suddenly filled by her presence. How her resplendent smile restored all his hope.

And after all that time of believing she was nothing but a weak human, he knew suddenly that he had been mistaken. Kagome was strong in her own way, in some way he had never before understood. Maybe she could not slay demons with his agility and force, but she had the purity and focus of heart and spirit that so many lacked. She was able to change, subtly, bad things about the world into good things. She knew her way into the heart. That was the strength that was her property. That would be a strength he himself would never own, and one strength that he needed in his life. In many ways she had been so much to him.

Bitterly, he realized that despite all these things, all that Kagome had been for him and all that he had been for Kagome, he had not spent a great deal of time with her over the years when she had clearly yearned for more closeness--his defensive and crass nature often led him to hurt her feelings or to skirt around her.

Each day he had avoided her direct company, coming to her only for brief times in the late afternoons to have dinner. Almost physically, he now felt the unbearable, stabbing regret of not ever being able to repair those things. Of having let slip through his fingers all those opportunities. He would never, in all his existence, find someone who meant so much to him as Kagome.

Deeper than that, more intensely, more painfully, like staring into the sun, he knew that he loved her.

Suddenly, Kagome moved in his arms. She took a large gasp of air and convulsed, as if struggling to surface from a body of turbulent water. Inuyasha, in shock, watched with wide eyes as she coughed and sputtered; weakly her head dropped back against his arm. After a moment of regaining her senses, she looked up into his startled face. Seeing him in the almost perfect darkness, lit only by a frightened Shippou's foxfire, she smiled with a look of untouchable tranquility. Sango held a hand over her mouth and Miroku was murmuring a prayer. Inuyasha swallowed thickly, unbelieving.

"Oh, Kagome..." he murmured, not knowing the measure of his heart.

"I knew," Kagome told him in a quiet whisper, joyful and tired. "I knew you, there."

* * *

Back at her cottage, with the last colors of daylight staining the gray horizon, everyone clustered around Kagome on the porch. She was clearly exhausted; Inuyasha had needed to carry her for most of the way back through the forest despite his own pains that were now rapidly healing. She passed in and out of restless sleep in the cradle of his arms, sometimes mumbling out from her dreams.

Now she was intent to tell the others of what she knew before she went on to what she had to do next. While the small group helped Sango dress her wounds, Kagome spoke. She began by telling them of her entry into the Place of Going, of seeing the woman Kikyou, of wanting to stay by the oceanside eternally. Then she told them of how she learned what it was she needed to do to break the curse that Naraku had cast on her in order to get the moon's power back to the world. Finally, she explained what Kikyou had told her, although she kept a number of details hidden from her audience.

"Kikyou said that the way we have been assigning priestesses to be the moon doesn't have to be the only way." Here, her brow furrowed. "She said that we can condense this power into a small, physical form that we can then make into a permanent moon. It would be totally unbreakable by demons and would not require a human to feed it power every night." Kagome held up the small pink marble that Shippou had previously noticed. "This is the Shikon Jewel, and all the power of the moon is within this little gem."

"So how do you get it to work, Priestess Kagome?" Sango asked. Shippou shuffled a bit, trying to accept the moon as a good thing rather than a bad, despite his earliest lessons in life. To his kind, the moon was a thing only to be hated. He was now learning that contrary to his own belief, the moon was almost worshipable in the human world.

"I have to rise with the moon one more time," Kagome finally answered quietly, holding on to some secret.

"Tonight?!" Inuyasha yelped. "You're in no shape for that right now, Kagome!"

"Naraku might be gone, but monsters will still prey upon the towns and we still aren't sure how many of his puppets are still out there," Miroku pointed out. "As it stands, it would be very helpful if Priestess Kagome went through this process as soon as possible, much as we dismay in her discomfort."

"Well, I shall prepare myself then to rise one more time," Kagome said with a small smile. She stood up from the porch and then turned to address them all. "Please feel free to stay here for the evening if you would like." She grabbed Inuyasha's arm and indicated that the others go inside. Politely, they did so.

"You don't have--"

"It's okay, Inuyasha." She smiled up at him. It was his strong devotion to her that brought her back from the edge of that threshold. It was his devotion that would allow this tiny moon to become real.

"Kagome..."

When Kikyou had told her of what she must do, she had felt a small waver of fear. If she should fail, then there would never be a moon again. The power would go out of the world. But she had regained confidence; and now, looking up at Inuyasha with a soft weariness, she felt only sure that the plan would work. She just knew that Kikyou had been right, and that everything would change for the world in a good and meaningful way after this night.

"I promise it'll be okay, Inuyasha." Hesitantly, she said as she watched the sun turn to the earth red and orange with its setting, "I just wanted you to know that I'm happy to be with you again. I don't have any regrets about anything, Inuyasha. I don't want you to have any either, so think about that while I raise the moon tonight, okay?" She laughed pleasantly. Inuyasha just rolled his eyes, relieved to hear her sweet laughter once more.

He boosted her up into the banyan tree, from where she discarded the globe that she had so loyally managed every night. It landed softly on the dirt, barely avoiding capture between the aerial roots of the banyan, and laid lifelessly. Kagome held the pink marble tightly in her hands and sunk into her familiar stupor.

* * *

In the Place of Going, Kagome met Kikyou a final time. Now they were by the sea; so close that Kikyou's feet were slapped by the oncoming waves as they reached desperately for the shoreline.

Kagome held out her palm with the Shikon Jewel resting on it and smiled.

"It worked, Kikyou," she said. "The moon is now the Shikon Jewel. All that remains is turning it into the moon."

Kikyou nodded calmly. "I pray, Kagome, I pray that this works. I know you are pure-hearted enough. Please remember my advice. Hundreds of thousands depend on you every night, as they have depended on a priestess since time immemorial. But make it personal. Inuyasha needs you."

"I know," Kagome said solemnly. "I will remember, Kikyou. I will remember you, and Inuyasha as well. Thank you for being with me."

Kikyou gave a puzzled smile, closed her eyes, and was gone in the same way Midoriko had previously gone. Kagome went once more away from the ocean and into the dark threshold of the castle entryway.

Contrary from its outward appearance, the space beyond the threshold was warmly lit with morning light. She was in a large plain with grey, short-cropped grass. The sky overhead was clear of cloud and the air was of pleasant temperature. The land was so flat that Kagome could see into what she felt was eternity, even as the sun seemed greatly magnified with no other mark by which to measure it.

The sun remained stationary as long as she did. But as she moved through the plain, the sun followed her overhead; it rose and rose higher into the sky, finally reaching its blinding zenith. Still Kagome did not stop or rest, despite that she felt tattered with exhaustion.

As the sun began to set, the world around her changed. It took on a glaring depth that parched her mouth and made the plain seem a desert. And as she moved, she encountered every priestess that had gone on before her, as they had died. Their painful deaths were reenacted around her, in a permanent and eternal display of sacrifice and pain. From Midoriko's suffering torture at the hand of an older demon king, before the moon when demons had been larger of number and far smarter, to Kikyou's brief wound that bled for hours before she passed, to the younger and older priestesses that came between them. As she passed each one, she was tempted to save her; she could, if only she used the jewel. But she must continue on. These were meaningless displays, merely things that had happened before. The cries of anguish and lonely torture were almost unbearable to Kagome's senses, but she pressed on. The Shikon Jewel shrunk and shrunk as the sun sank lower. She ignored this, knowing that hesitation or fear would destroy her chances for this new, budding light.

_All things start smally,_ she coached herself as she walked, _They begin as tiny little sparks. Even the greatest tree comes from a seed. A seed goes into the earth and with proper conditions, propagates. It becomes large because it survives. If it started off big, it would not know how to support itself. That's why we're children first. Likewise this light must be small in order to take root in the sky. I must plant it with the right conditions._

She stopped as she came to her own body in the succession of priestesses. The sun had set; a black night of starless, moonless depth stretched on eternally around her. The only light came from herself, and washed over that copy of her dead body before her. Her death had been easy and soft. An enchantment had held her, and she had let go of her power. But still, this was a dead thing. That she had gone out of the world without pain did not affect her now, only that she had gone out at all.

She was surprised with herself to discover a small temptation. She could revive this body now. _No,_ she chided. She could restore the body but what then would be of her spirit? She could not perform such an act knowing that a selfishness of that caliber would lead to ruin in the rest of the world. Ruin to Inuyasha. She wanted to live; she did not wish to be disconnected from all the things the earth provided the living. She was frightened of whatever lay beyond. And she was frightened of what may happen if she did fail.

Kagome hesitated. Was it worth the risk? She looked back the way she had come. Not so far away, a priestess, dead in the dust. A claw had rent her face, furrowed it like tilled earth. One eye had been ravaged, but the other was a cold blue color staring out at nothing. No more than a marble set in a statue's face. It did not even speak of the pain that had befallen the woman on her way out of the world.

She began to tremble. That was what awaited if she failed; that was what awaited earth.

Kagome did not know if her duty would be survival or personal defeat, but she turned her face to the cooling night sky and imagined it was like any other normal night, that in the morning she would awaken to the sunlight in her face and the internal hope that the day would be good. And within this, within the threshold beyond the Place of Going, she rose the moon with more lucidity than she had known in her past experiences. The surreal light around her quelled her fears.

If she left the world, she would leave it knowing she had saved it.

* * *

Nothing had seemed to change; not at first. Then the night came darkly, and the moon rose while Kagome remained on earth beside him. It was a restful round disk in the sky, round and yellow as it had always been. But with the Shikon Jewel had gone the magic that had once belonged to it. No longer needing aid, the magic had left behind all who had helped make the moon rise.

The moon continued slowly, stretchingly, across the night, but Inuyasha and Kagome watched still even as the air grew cold, standing in the yard of Kagome's cabin.

"It's been so long since I've seen the moon," Kagome said with a laugh. "It's nice."

"Everything's nice to you," Inuyasha told her grumpily. She turned and smiled at him in the moonlight, took his hand warmly. The moon blurred the stars around it in a foggy halo. Kagome wanted to hold onto this peace forever.

"Thank you, Inuyasha," she said, meaning everything. She knew his heart; she did not require he tell her what lay there.

Inuyasha fidgeted. He was no longer sure of the situation. The moon was there, and that was good. Kagome was by his side, and that was also good. But what did this mean? What was it he should say to her, reveal to her? How could he explain to her the nature of his heart? Did she know he loved her, should he tell her?

Kagome took the words from him, took them right from his mouth as she stood up on tiptoe and whispered against his cheek, "I love you, too."

The moon's light melted over them, stars dribbled across the sky like seafoam, beyond number. Their lips met warmly, needing no magic to bring light to their dreams.

* * *

The End

* * *

Comments: I apologize that this chapter took so long for me to publish. As it stands, I have decided not to continue with the next two parts I'd planned for this. Thanks so much for reading this little story, I quite enjoyed writing it...

xoxo Sissy


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